Pregame 3: Baltimore Orioles at Detroit Tigers

Or is it Pre-Game? I’m never sure which way to go with that. At any rate, the Tigers will make another attempt at Game 3 of their perfect 162-0 season, which will include 81 walkoffs (or is it walk offs? walk-offs?), which is the max for that stat, as T Smith pointed out.

Yesterday’s rainout means that Drew “Can’t Buy A Start” Smyly will be skipped in the rotation, and the Tigers will hand the ball to Anibal this afternoon. At least it looks like him. It’s too foggy to tell for sure. In fact today’s game will likely be delayed; there is almost zero visibility at the moment.

If and when they do tee it up, Andrew Romine will get his first start at short as a Tiger, and oh-so-briefly-ex-Tiger Steve Lombardozzi will be starting at 2B for the Orioles. And this flew under my radar somehow, but on the bench for Baltimore is our old pal Delmon Young. Will be a pity not to watch him track down fly balls in the fog.

62 Comments

Apparently the rain and wind is chasing the fog. Start time has been officially delayed until 1:15. We shall see.

jud

April 4, 2014 at 1:34 pm

There should be a new “Sadistic” catagory for runners Avila almost throws out stealing seeing that he doesn’t throw out any attempting the steal!

Vince in MN

April 4, 2014 at 1:53 pm

But on the positive side, he frames pitches really well.

Smoking Loon

April 5, 2014 at 12:10 am

I think the Tigers should give Avila a 15-year, $30M contract extension, and put us out of our misery of hope. Catcher For Life Alex Avila.

As a hitter, great eye for the strike zone, great power in his bat, but not many pitches he can hit well. Three True Outcomes are strikeout, walk, and groundball to the right side. Defensively, he’s very good, even if he’s not throwing out runners like he used to. Pitchers love him, seems like a great guy and great teammate, one of a minority of ballplayers you could call articulate. I think we’d miss him.

jud

April 4, 2014 at 1:56 pm

That could be a “Sub Stadistic” Catagory

Vince in MN

April 4, 2014 at 2:10 pm

So far Kinsler batting 1st is looking good. If the BOOBs hold up their end (pun intended), he should see a lot of RBI possibilities.

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 11:23 pm

So Kinsler’s job is to pick up the BOOBs. Good work if you can get it.

jud

April 4, 2014 at 2:13 pm

Hey Romine..tge guy threw you 6 balls and one strike….and you K….no wonder you don’t play much

jud

April 4, 2014 at 2:13 pm

Hey Romine..the guy threw you 6 balls and one strike….and you K….no wonder you don’t play much

Vince in MN

April 4, 2014 at 2:20 pm

He definitely needs to work on strike zone recognition. Maybe nerves in first start? But still, that was a poor AB.

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 11:21 pm

It was an ok AB until the last pitch. Yeah, nerves, I’d say. Chance at RBI in a 3-2 count might make you pull the trigger if you weren’t quite sure it was a ball.

jud

April 4, 2014 at 2:14 pm

Good call Vince!

Vince in MN

April 4, 2014 at 2:15 pm

As Ausmus said in relation to baserunning aggressiveness at the end of ST, “Some of these guys will have to be reined in”. Looks like Castellanos is going to be one of those guys.

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 10:16 pm

Better reined in than rained out.

jud

April 4, 2014 at 2:18 pm

Hey Casstalanos we teach our high school runners to pick up the 3rd base coach before you get to third…another beyond rookie mistake

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 11:27 pm

He’s making me wonder if his head is really in the game, besides at the plate. And where did he tag Davis (going from 2B to 3B), exactly? On the helmet? From the only angle I got to see, it didn’t even look like he made a tag.

Coleman

April 4, 2014 at 2:42 pm

Hey, Romine can bunt.

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 11:15 pm

He can throw from the hole in the outfield grass, too. That was a beauty.

Nice 3-6-3 DP today. It’s only taken a few games to realize what an upgrade Cabrera over Fielder at 1B is. I didn’t think that was such a big deal, but I was wrong.

Cabrera just became the 9th player in MLB history to reach 2000 hits before age 31

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 10:29 pm

Did anyone else have a strong feeling, a by-God premonition – I’m serious – that Cabrera was gonna hit it out there for #2,000? And it just flew off his bat. I wonder what the speed of the ball leaving the bat on that one was. That would have *killed* the SS, jud.

Vince in MN

April 4, 2014 at 4:56 pm

Chamberlain throwing BP. All those surprised raise your hand.

Coleman

April 4, 2014 at 5:32 pm

They brought him in as a last ditch effort to get that 3rd straight walk off.

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 10:46 pm

That’s what I’m talkin’ about. It’s like watching Cabrera get the pitch he knows is coming.

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 10:47 pm

I felt bad for Chamberlain. Throwing strikes and getting hammered. I’d like to see him turn it around in Detroit.

TIGERS RULE

April 5, 2014 at 11:04 am

His slider was wicked …… all swings and misses.

Smoking Loon

April 6, 2014 at 12:12 am

Good call. It wasn’t all bad.

jud

April 4, 2014 at 4:57 pm

Hey Jobo.Spring Training BP is over..these are real games!!

Vince in MN

April 4, 2014 at 5:03 pm

10 runs – not bad for our new pop gun offense.

Kevin in Dallas

April 4, 2014 at 5:36 pm

Wanted to get this out earlier – props to Castellanos for his first big league RBI.

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 11:03 pm

Props to Castellanos for a nice first few games at the plate. He looks like he belongs already.

judpma

April 4, 2014 at 5:59 pm

Is it a bit strange that the bullpen savior , accoarding to the Tigers hasn’t thrown one pitch yet in 2014….Phil Coke 0.00

Coleman

April 4, 2014 at 10:16 pm

Speaking of bullpen saviors, Valverde now has more saves than Nathan.

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 11:01 pm

T Smith’s “81 walk-offs” went right over my head. I owe him some valuable coupons redeemable toward valuable prizes.

Pre-game, pregame, etc.: I struggle with it myself. I’ve started to lean away from the hyphen. Pre and post are prefixes (pre-fixes?), no need. I think the hyphen is called for in “walk-off.” A disparate words kind of thing. Walkoff looks like an anglicized Russian name (Smirn-off?). There was a time when I was careful to write “e-mail.” It’s “email” these days.

Should I have capitalized “anglicized”? Ah, the complications of language.

Smoking Loon

April 4, 2014 at 11:30 pm

Looks like there might be a problem with Rajai Davis’s arm in LF, eh? Well, I’m anxious to see him start getting on base and stealing some bases.

TIGERS RULE

April 5, 2014 at 11:07 am

Who cares about the arm …… as long as the 3 run dingers keep coming!

Kevin in Dallas

April 5, 2014 at 10:35 am

So Prince Fielder had a pretty bad baserunning blunder in the Rangers 8-1 loss last night. He missed a go sign from 3B coach Gary Pettis (on a pretty clear run scoring single), and then hesitated, stuttered, went back and forth, well, you know. He didn’t dive and then fall 8 feet from the bag…you can watch last night’s gaffe yourself here. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday.....mode=video.

After the game he told reporters “I didn’t get a good jump and I didn’t pick up Gary in time. It was one of those days. We played hard, but we made a couple of mistakes. We just have to come back and be sharper [Saturday].”

He either ignores or fails to understand the importance of certain situations.I mentioned this a few days ago, but I believe that Fielder is playing under much greater expectations down here than Kinsler is up there.

jud

April 5, 2014 at 12:45 pm

At $20 mil Prince doesn’t really care. After all he is just as he puts it “taking care of my family”..

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Kevin in Dallas Another starter getting shelled today. And JV looks like he may start the season on the DL.